Therapy for Couples Coping with Illness
In Sickness and in Health…but you didn’t expect it to happen to you!
Living with illness (either newly diagnosed or a chronic condition) can have huge implications for your relationship. Relationships already bring out issues in all of us. Learning to cope with an illness on top of normal relationship challenges can put tremendous strain on the relationship.
For some partners it means learning to become a caregiver or taking on new responsibilities in the household. For other partners, it can mean learning to ask for (and accept) help.
Communication is strained in ways you never expected. Small stresses of day-to-day living are exacerbated by the condition.
You’re fitting in medical appointments… worried about finances… and still trying to take care of the kids and the house.
You may have already realized that relationship stress makes you feel physically worse, and when you feel worse the relationship suffers.
At times it may feel like your relationship has taken a backseat to the illness. While you’re coming to grips with your body betraying you, your partner is feeling lost and worried that they can’t support you…
Couples therapy can help you learn to both struggle and thrive together. You will grow closer as you learn to express your fears and emotions about what is happening in a safe space. You will learn to communicate your needs and hear how your partner is truly feeling. You can learn how to stay connected (or reconnect) through this process. You can grieve the life you planned together and realize ways to adjust— to turn toward one another during these challenges. Finally, you can find new ways to appreciate each other and the life you will have. Click here to start today.
Therapy for Long-Distance Couples
Couples Living Apart Together… Separated by Choice or Circumstance
Numbers of committed couples who live separately are on the rise. Maybe your work or pursuing your education requires you be away from your partner. Maybe you choose to live apart from your partner because you’ve realized it’s just what makes sense for you and your relationship.
Whether a lifestyle choice or a result of circumstance, living apart (or long-distance) presents unique challenges to relationships.
Some couples find themselves needing to deal with old beliefs about what relationships “should” look like, and dealing with societal pressures.
Others need to find different ways to cultivate intimacy and communicate while separated.
Maybe you fear what long-distance means for the relationship and are wondering if your relationship can survive. Maybe you’re finding it difficult to share your heart when you don’t share a home.
Couples therapy can help you ensure the “togetherness” doesn’t fall by the wayside for you in the living apart together equation. You will learn to communicate the way you need to stay connected, how to manage conflict when you’re geographically separated, and how to “be there” when you aren’t there. Together, you can find ways to share experiences and strengthen your bond. You can find ways to appreciate the time you share together and the time you have apart while supporting one another’s dreams. You can develop the relationship you’ve always dreamed of. Let’s get started.
Schedule a Consultation to Talk
I’d love to talk more about what I can help you with.